Florida Tech Panthers Fight Back To Beat Rollins, 69-65
By Zach Clark // January 22, 2015
Wins its first SSC game this year
BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – Florida Tech (11-6, 1-5 SSC) clawed back from an 11-point deficit to win its first Sunshine State Conference game of the season 69-65 over Rollins (7-10, 0-6 SSC) Wednesday night at the Clemente Center.
The Panthers trailed by 11 with 13:46 to play. However, in less than seven minutes, Rollins led by only three following an offensive rebound and a put back by Isaac Spence.
As the game entered the final minutes, Jermaine Jackson found Chris Carter for a three to make it 62-60 Rollins.
Following two offensive rebounds with less than four minutes to play, Corbin Jackson kicked a pass out to Jermaine Jackson for a huge three-pointer that gave FIT the lead for good.
Jermaine Jackson hit a runner in the lane with 1:35 left to make it a 65-62 game in favor of the Panthers. Carter then pushed his team’s lead to five on a pair of free throws.
Although Rollins was held to just three points in the final six minutes, the one basket made by James Ferrell resulted in a two-point game with 10 seconds to play.
After Rollins called two 30-second timeouts, Spence skipped a pass down the court to an open Jermaine Jackson, who dribbled it out to the three-point line before he was fouled with 4.9 seconds on the clock.
Jackson hit both shots from the charity stripe to seal the four-point win.
Carter registered his first triple-double of his Panther career with 11 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists. He also had three steals in 36 minutes.
Corbin Jackson notched his eighth double-double of the season with 15 points and 13 rebounds. Caleb Wigginton tied Corbin Jackson for the team-high in scoring with a career-best 15 points and Randy Echols totaled 11.
“When you play against Rollins’ zone, you just aren’t going to get a lot of chances,” head coach Billy Mims said.
“Tonight we made some big threes. Caleb Wigginton, what can you say about the freshman? It was a great night for Caleb. He and Randy Echols were the first subs of the game that I brought in. I told Caleb the way he played against Florida Southern was going to give him a lot of minutes tonight.
“Caleb came off the bench, played 27 minutes and was tied with Corbin Jackson for the game-high in scoring with 15 points and was 4-for-8 from behind the arc.”
“Early in the game I thought I’ve got to bring my best shooters in so I subbed in Caleb and Randy. Caleb was 4-for-8 and Randy was 3-for-5. Those two guys combined to go 7-for-13 from behind the arc. That’s over 50-percent shooting. When you’re playing against Rollins’ zone you have got to make threes to have a chance to win the game. Seven of nine threes that we made came from Randy and Caleb.”
FIT outrebounded Rollins 38-33 and 14-8 on the offensive glass. It also won points off turnovers, 19-7, second chance points, 15-6, fast break points, 10-2, and bench scoring, 30-5. Of the Panthers’ 27 field goals, 22 came off assists.
The Panthers will travel to Nova Southeastern on Saturday for a 4 p.m. match-up.
Links to live video and stats will be available at FloridaTechSports.com
Jim Mitchell and Paul Van Scott will broadcast the game for the Panthers at FloridaTechSports.com/live
